Oliver
Rain.
I feel it soaking my hair…at least I think it’s the rain that’s matted it to my forehead. My clothes are soaked through to my skin; the fabric of my jeans and t-shirt is ripped and my skin burns from the water on my open wounds.
I smell the gasoline pooling around me.
I’m hanging upside down—being held in by only my seatbelt.
The groan that escapes me is horrible; I see a pair of legs run up to the window and kneel on the pavement so the person can get a better look at the tangled mess inside. “Hold on there, man…we called for help!” a man screams at me. “You’re lucky to be alive right now…that other guy—”
Julie.
I think about her soft, honey blonde hair.
She smells like strawberries and everything I could ever want from love.
She’s all I think about. Now I might not be able to ever see her again.
Or feel her warm skin against mine.
Listen to her laugh.
See her big, blue eyes burn into mine.
My limbs are betraying me—they got disconnected from my mind during the crash. I’m so tired that I close my eyes and drift off, unaware of the tragic scene outside the Jeep. The broken pieces of the other people involved and the cries of their families.
I have no one here.
Am I dead?
***
I can hear Julie humming and sunlight seeps through my eyelids. When I open my eyes, the sunlight is pouring into the open windows of our new house. I smell her strawberry shampoo and smile. Her naked body stretches next to mine and she moans and opens her eyes to look at me.
I pull her closer against my own naked body and she smiles.
“Good morning, sunshine,” I whisper to her.
She lifts her body up a little to find my lips and graze hers against them.
I want to fucking cry.
Is this the way it’s going to be now?
I can’t die. I have to go to her.
I need more time.
***
Rain.
I force my eyes open and see the blood.
My blood.
It’s everywhere; I don’t know what parts of me it’s coming from, but it surrounds me, pooling in thick, red puddles.
“I have more people hurt over here!” someone screams.
“Please, please help us!”
“I didn’t see him—I swear I didn’t see him until it was too late. You gotta believe me. I wasn’t trying to run off, man!”
“Just fucking call someone!”
I can’t focus. I can tell that I’m upside-down still, and there are pieces of the Jeep lying around the pavement outside. People are still screaming and I hear sirens getting closer, but I just want them to take me to Julie—load me up in the back of an ambulance and take me to her before I die.
I’m fading. I can feel it.
“Hey, stay with me.” I hear Julie’s voice. I move my neck as much as I can to try and see her, but she isn’t there. I know she isn’t there. “I love you,” I hear her whisper, and the world gets black again for a few seconds.
I wake up to the sound of a machine cutting the door of the Jeep off. Several hands reach in to pull me out, but they all fail. “He’s strapped in!” someone yells, and he kneels down to look at me. It’s a different man than before.
He looks worried. “Hey, man…can you hear me? The car is overturned. You’ve been in an accident. What’s your name?”
My mouth doesn’t work.
My eyes barely work.
My heart doesn’t even feel like it’s working.
The man nods as if I’m actually answering him; he’s trying to get me to focus on him rather than what he’s doing to me. I can feel him cutting through the seatbelt and he places an arm around my torso so I won’t fall and crack my head open more than it already is.
Pain.
I scream so loud that it hurts my own ears.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…look,” the man says and holds up his hands. “I have to finish cutting off the seatbelt to get you free.”
I grunt in approval.
Just get me out of here and take me to Julie.
He cuts through the seatbelt and my body falls. I hit my head against the hard surface despite his valiant effort to soften the blow.
Darkness.
***
“Hey, come here,” Julie says as she pops back into my head. I run to her and scoop her up into my arms; I can literally feel her warm, soft skin on mine. I squeeze her with no intentions of ever letting her go. “Come on, it’ll be okay.” She coos and strokes my head. “You just have to wake up.”
I make a promise to myself right then. If I somehow make it out of this alive…I’m going to start following the rules again. It doesn’t matter how many rules I’ve broken; this rule can’t be shattered like the first.
I can’t take life for granted anymore now that I’m fighting for my own.
I can’t take Julie for granted anymore, because now look at me: I may never see her again.
I can’t take myself for granted anymore; I have to be a better person than I have been.
When I wake up, I’m grabbing Julie and never letting her go. We’ll live a long life full of excitement and fun—no more arguing and pissing each other off out of spite. We know we will run back to each other. It’s an unspoken agreement between us.
Does she know what happened? I think about her alone in the darkness, crying when she finds out I died and she didn’t get to say goodbye.
Or, “I love you.”
She is going to kill me herself if she can’t say goodbye.
I think about who will comfort her.
Harley.
Casey.
Brandon.
Each person I think about pisses me off more.
I have to stay alive.
***
“We have to get him outta there!” a man screams, and the loud machine takes off the other door at my feet. “Get the damn crowd back! Is he alive?” He screams louder and several people are crying outside of the Jeep. I wonder if Julie is out there, waiting to see my mangled body for confirmation that it’s all over. “I said, get that crowd back!”
Fire.
I smell fire.
“Shit, the hood’s smoking! Put that fucking fire out!”
“Get him out of there…now!”
“Grab his shoulders and pull his ass out! I don’t care if you have to force him! It’s about to go up in flames!”
“Hey, buddy, can you hear me?”
My eyes flutter and open enough for me to see him. I feel a rush of adrenaline from something that’s injected into my leg, and suddenly I’m alert and aware.
“Julie,” I croak out. My mouth is dry. “I need Julie.”
My body hurts.
My heart feels like a thousand needles are being jabbed into it.
I can’t even feel my legs.
I definitely know several bones in my body are broken.
The man tugs me harder and I feel myself slide against some broken glass on the pavement, slicing through what’s left of my skin. The engine of the Jeep is on fire and several firefighters are putting it out. I manage to pry my eyes open a little wider to watch two paramedics scramble toward me and start working on my wounds. One of them holds a flashlight to my eyes, making me shut them tightly so I can just listen.
“He’s about to go into cardiac arrest. Where’s his wallet?”
“I’ll look for ID. Was there anyone else in the car?”
“No, just him. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Here, I found his wallet.”
“Good, that’s more than we usually find.”
“He can’t breathe—lift him up!”
“Get him, get him! We’re losing him!”
***
Strawberries.
We sit on the golden chaise in her library at the cabin, in front of the huge window that looks across the lake. It’s springtime because the lake is calm and no one is buzzing around on speed boats or jet skis. Julie brushes her hair from her face and her big eyes capture me. I kiss her nose to make her smile.
I love her fucking smile.
“I want to stay here forever.” I pull her as close to me as I possibly can without suffocating her. “I never want you away from me again. I can’t take it when you’re upset with me, and now look—I could die and you’ll have to live with the memory of me forever.”
Julie giggles and her sunshine fills my head. “If we stay here forever, you’ll get tired of the same things every day, over and over.”
“It’s not possible to get tired of you…I’m addicted to you in every way imaginable. You were made for me, Julie. I loved you before I even met you, and there’s nothing you can do to make me not love you.”
“I will love you forever,” she whispers, but I can’t see her anymore.
***
Slam.
The paramedics toss me into the back of their bus with only a little bit of care. I feel it start zooming through the still slippery streets; they’re working on my body as much as they can, assessing the injuries out loud.
“Jesus, there’s so much fucking blood.”
“Here, get this IV in him. He’ll need an infusion, I’m sure.”
They stick a needle into my arm, but I can barely feel anything at this point, so it only stings a little.
“Shit, he’s messed up. Just from what I can see…he’s got a broken leg, some broken fingers, several deep contusions to his legs and middle torso and cuts on his face…”
“There’s no telling what damage has been done on the inside.”
“Right…I can see he’s got a few broken ribs, but I don’t want to press down in case of any internal bleeding.”
“That seatbelt saved him from being thrown out of the front window for sure.”
I feel the drugs kick in from the IV. Everything goes numb.
“Don’t worry, we’re almost to the hospital. You have a fighting chance.”
Liars.
I feel like death.
“You got his ID, right?”
“Yeah, here. Oliver Jackson, twenty-five. Got his phone for next of kin too.”
Next of kin.
My heart races and I panic. They only want your next of kin when they know something they aren’t telling you. They know I’m not going to make it. My heart starts burning like a flame has been shoved into my chest. I scream loud in pain as one of them holds me down; I hear a monitor beeping quickly and then slowing way down.
“His heart’s failing!”
“Get the paddles!”
They shock me four times and the monitor’s beeps stabilize. I can’t scream anymore, but I really fucking want to. Someone gets on the radio, their voice frantic as my body burns and I’m trapped inside my own head.
“Bus three to base—we’re in route to Rockford Memorial with a twenty-five-year-old male, victim of a motor vehicle collision. Multiple contusions, broken bones, and possible internal injuries.”
I hear static. “Base to bus three, we’re ready for you.”
“Okay, buddy, hang in there. We’re three minutes away.”
“I love you, Julie.” I feel my lips move, but I don’t know if my words come out. Hot patches of tears form in the corners of my eyes; I can’t fucking believe this is happening.
The rules.
The fucking rules.
They didn’t save me from getting my heart broken.
They sure as hell didn’t keep me alive, either.
I try to call out for her, but there’s so much dirt and glass in my mouth that my tongue feels like sandpaper. I can’t breathe; I don’t even want to try. I shut my eyes tight and wait for the bus to stop. Fresh air breezes over my body, but I’m so numb that I can’t move anything. A woman’s voice cuts into the conversation around me, asking the paramedics questions and trying to talk to me loudly.
“Mr. Jackson? Can you hear me?” I hear electronic doors open. “My name is Dr. Johnson, you’ve been in an accident…can you hear me, sir?”
She reminds me of someone…I can’t quite place her soothing tone of voice. I’m too out of my mind to place her in my past.
I open my eyes a little and force them to stay open so I can see what’s happening.
Dr. Johnson is tall, thin, and in her forties, her white-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her smile is inviting like Julie’s, and I feel like I’m going to be okay.
“Good boy, there you go.” She walks closer to me. “I’m going to take good care of you, but I need your help, okay?”
How the hell can I help you? I can’t even move my fucking legs.
“Julie,” I groan. “I need her.”
The doctor smiles. “Is she your wife?”
No, but I want her to be.
I start to cough up blood and she wipes my mouth. “My wife…Julie…” I croak.
She looks up and motions to someone outside of the room. I hear the door open and someone walks inside—a woman who talks to Dr. Johnson. I hear Julie’s name being discussed. The second woman walks back out of the room and I frown.
I want to get up and walk out of here; I want to get back into my Jeep and drive to Julie’s like nothing ever happened. If I had only left a few minutes earlier, I wouldn’t even be in this situation. But no…I was with another woman.
Lucy.
The monitors they’re hooking up to me start rapidly beeping.
“We’re losing him again!”
***
I’m asleep.
At least, I think I am.
“Oliver,” Julie whispers.
Where is she? It’s pitch black; I can’t see her.
But I can hear her worrying.
I can smell her sweetness.
I can feel her love for me radiating through the darkness.
“You’re in bad shape,” she says closer to my ear. Her sadness makes it hard to concentrate. “I don’t know if they’re going to be able to fix you. There’s more wrong with you than they are telling you about.”
My stomach twists and I wince in pain. “I’ll be fine. I don’t want to leave you. I can’t be without you—I don’t want to be. Please don’t leave me alone in here.”
“If you don’t leave me here, you will leave me out there.” I can hear her pain. “Try and fight, Oliver. You have to stay alive to see me again.”
***
I wake myself up, screaming in pain. I howl into the air above with fear and angst; there’s someone digging around in my insides.
“He has three broken ribs and one has punctured his kidney. Did his chest get crushed?” Dr. Johnson is hovering over me again, worry in her eyes. “Let’s get him to X-ray, but there’s a rip in the lining of his right lung and his heart rate isn’t stable. He’s been into cardiac arrest twice in the field.”
I wonder where Julie really is. I wonder if she knows I’m lying here—dying. I wonder if she will cry for me; if she’ll get depressed and mourn me until she meets me wherever I end up. I can’t stop thinking about what I said to her as they stick tubes down my throat and I gag. Someone lifts me off the bed a few inches so I can vomit in something; when I’m done, they act like it’s nothing and continue working on me. I can feel the rest of my clothes being cut off and someone washes the blood off my skin the best they can.
Needles get poked into my veins to let magical liquid inside fill my body, and instead of wanting to thrash around, I’m now getting really fucking tired.
I think about the yellow envelope.
I wonder if the test was positive; I wonder if it’ll be a boy or a girl.
Colin. I remember my dream about the small boy that looked like me.
How can you miss someone you’ve never met?
I want to cry, but I can’t.
I should have opened that envelope. Now it’s probably lost in the debris of the accident and I’ll never know the results. My child—if there is one—will never know me.
I think about my father.
I’m going to die the same way he did.
My child will grow up without me.
Learn to walk without me.
Talk without me.
Laugh without me.
Learn to love without me.
My chest tingles and I can feel my eyelids closing on their own.
“Get some paddles—he’s going into cardiac arrest again!”
“Shit, we’re losing him!”
“Doctor, he’s flatlining!”
“Get those damn paddles on him!”
“He’s not going to make it!”
Then…nothing.
No screams.
No doctors.
No nurses.
No cabin.
No Julie.
No life.
Nothing.
Darkness.